4 Things Knicks: These Are the Good Times

PERSPECTIVE PEOPLE
On Saturday, I realized I was not alone. The fans who paid the big bucks to sit with the celebrities inside the World’s Most Famous Arena get it. As do the thousands who flocked to the streets near MSG to celebrate the New York Knicks Game One victory.

While cynical fans have been ranting on sports radio, social media, and my inbox for months about Giannis Antetokounmpo, Mikal Bridges, Mike Brown, and Karl-Anthony Towns — there’s a large contingent of us who realize these are the good times. And why follow sports if you can’t enjoy the good times?

SportsRantNY covers 10 professional sports teams. In the last calendar year, only two others made the playoffs — the New York Liberty and the New York Yankees.

Meanwhile…

1. The Knicks have made the playoffs four straight years, and five out of the last six. That’s after making the playoffs only 4x in a 20-year span from 2001-02 until 2019-20.
2. They’ve improved each of the last four seasons:

3. They won 50+ games three years in a row for just the third time in the organization’s 80-year history:

4. They’ve won 61.3% of their regular season games in the last four years, which ranks fifth in the NBA over that period:

I understand that we all want our teams to go undefeated. We want all of our players to play like all-stars, and we want our coaches and GMs to only make moves we approve.

But in the real world — the Knicks were the NBA’s laughingstock for two decades. Now they have the sixth-best DraftKings odds to win an NBA Championship.

If you can’t enjoy the good times, why call yourself a fan?


FROM THIBS TO BROWN
I’m on record as saying that after Jalen Brunson and Leon Rose, the most important figure in the Knicks turnaround was Tom Thibadeau. However, I’m also on record as saying that while I wouldn’t have fired him, I understood the move.

After the change, the primary concern was whether or not the Knicks would lose their defensive identity under a new head coach.

In Thibs final season, the Knicks ranked ninth in team defense — giving up 111.7 points per game. In Mike Brown’s first season, they shaved that to 110.1 points per game, finishing fifth in the NBA.

What about rebounding?

• In 2024-25 the Knicks placed 24^th with 42.6 rebounds per game.
• In 2025-26 they jumped to 7^th with 45.6 per game.

They were led in rebounding this year by:

• Towns (12.9 rpg) who ranked second in the NBA.
• Mitchell Robinson (8.8 rpg) who ranked 13^th.
• Josh Hart (7.4 rpg) who ranked 27^th.

Meanwhile, as promised, Brown increased the Knicks bench scoring from 1783 points in 2024-25 to 2592 points in 2025-26.

Granted, if the Knicks fall short of reaching the Eastern Conference Finals again, the grumbling about Brown replacing Thibodeau will probably live on. But the numbers clearly show that at the very least, the coaching change did not hurt the Knicks at all.


PROVEN PLAYOFF DUO
The Knicks’ two All-Stars came to play in Game One on Saturday night.

Brunson led the way with 28 points to go along with 7 assists, 5 rebounds, and a steal. 19 of his points were in the first half, while 19 of Towns’ 25 points came in the second half. Towns added 4 assists, 8 rebounds, 3 blocks, and a steal.

This is nothing new, as these two players have already proven that they can produce under the spotlight.

Here’s a list of the all-time leading postseason scorers in franchise history (minimum of 18 games played):  

PREDICTION
The Knicks finished seven games ahead of the Hawks in the regular season due to higher-end talent, more depth, and more experience. We’ll give the Hawks one of the two games in Atlanta, but the Knicks finish them off in five.
Knicks in 5


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